Professor Nynke Renske van den Broek

Head of Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health; Professor in Maternal and Newborn Health; Honorary Consultant Obstetrician Gynaecologist

Professor van den Broek is an Obstetrician-Gynaecologist trained in Tropical Medicine, with recognised international expertise in global maternal and newborn health and implementation research.

At LSTM, she established and leads the Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health (CMNH). This is currently one of the largest academic groups in Europe with an established and internationally relevant portfolio of work that incorporates priority interventions for reducing maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity.

CMNH works through effective links with governments and international partners across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia to promote the health of women and their babies in low- and middle-income countries through high quality research, teaching and technical assistance.

Professor van den Broek has designed and conducted large population-based randomised controlled trials of single interventions for improved maternal and newborn outcomes. She has used this experience to design and conduct implementation research programmes in multi-country settings in both Asia and sub-Saharan Africa to assess the effectiveness of complex interventions and to measure ‘what works where and how’ in real life settings. Impact has been ascertained through the development and application of innovative monitoring and evaluation frameworks. New indicators and methodology to measure availability and quality of care have been developed and applied.

CMNH aims to inform the global agenda by ensuring good data are available to measure where and why women and babies die and stillbirths occur. New tools and criteria have been developed to measure the burden of maternal morbidity and to be able to measure maternal health as an outcome.

Professor van den Broek enjoys the challenge of bringing the discipline of good research methodology to the planning and evaluation of complex development programmes that aim to strengthen health systems where this is expected to directly benefit maternal and newborn health.

At CMNH, Professor van den Broek leads a multi-disciplinary team of 50 academics, postgraduate students and programme management staff who wish to make a difference and develop, conduct and disseminate the highest quality research in the area of global maternal and newborn health.

The Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health is a WHO Collaborating Centre and a member of the Partnership for Maternal Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH)

Professional Qualifications• Fellow Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists RCOG, London 2006• Master in Family Planning Faculty of Family Planning, RCOG, London 2001• PhD University of Amsterdam, 1998• Certificate of Specialist Training (Obstetrics and Gynaecology) RCOG, London 1995• Membership of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (MRCOG) RCOG, London, 1993• Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H) Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerpen, 1987• Arts (MBBS) Erasmus University, Rotterdam, 1984

Teaching

Professor van den Broek supervises many PhD students. Current and recent students and topics include:

Selected publications

All of Professor van den Broek’s publications can be requested from Caroline Hercod

Selected Publications

2018Lambert J, Etsane E, Bergh A-M, Pattinson, van den Broek N. ‘I thought they were going to handle me like a queen but they didn’t’: A qualitative study exploring the Quality of Care provided to women at the time of birth. Midwifery 2018; in press. doi: 10.1016/j.midw.2018.04.007

McCauley M, van den Broek N. The incidence of congenital syphilis in the United Kingdom: February 2010 to January 2015. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology 2017;124(1):72-77. doi: 10.1111/1471-0528.13950